


A Proud Tradition of Assholes

by Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)



Series: A Comedy of Assholes (Rhapsody, etc.) [17]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Angst and Humor, Awkward Conversations, Drinking & Talking, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:37:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7756300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/pseuds/Ywain%20Penbrydd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathaniel Howe is the latest in a long line of assholes, but at least he's not a traitor. Anders is reflexively disgusting and antagonistic, but no one dies on his watch -- not even the dead guy. In some ways, they deserve each other, and every other break the Wardens cut them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Proud Tradition of Assholes

Nathaniel slammed open the door of the infirmary, and Anders didn't even flinch. He did tear his eyes away from where he was daubing embalming salve on Justice's tattered skin, and shot a sharp look over his shoulder.

Nathaniel's reply was a pointed look as he smacked a bottle onto the workbench beside the door. There was only the faintest pause, a long look to be sure Anders understood, and then he was gone, long strides carrying him along the hall, away from the door he hadn't bothered to shut.

"You confuse me," Justice said, after a moment, as Anders turned back to him. "You shirk your obligations to others of your kind, yet you are unceasingly merciful and driven to tend the physical wounds of those around you."

"Yes, well, a bit of blood never really did anything for the décor. Even mine doesn't really contribute to the atmosphere Solona's going for, here." Anders snorted and pulled a needle, already trailing thread, from where he'd stuck it in his sleeve, earlier.

"None of this justifies the way Nathaniel regards you."

Anders looked up, horrified. After a few failed starts and a bit of blinking, he determinedly returned to stitching the holes in Justice's now-softened skin. "Are we talking about this? I don't think this is a discussion you want to have, Justice. I don't think this is a discussion I want to have."

"He is thankless and demanding toward you. There is no need for that," Justice insisted.

"That is…" Anders blew a wisp of hair out of his face and reached for more of the salve. He could see where Justice got that impression — it was one they gave intentionally. They really were shitheads to each other in public. And privately, if he was entirely honest, but privately also came with hours of brutal fucking and a warm body to wake up with. Which he'd just been invited to do, once again.

"That is inaccurate," he said, pointing to the bottle, as soon as he had a hand free. "You're just misunderstanding his thanks." And his demands, but he was absolutely not getting into that, with Justice. "He's demanding and thankful, but so's Solona. I think it's a Warden thing, really."

"I will consider this," Justice said, indicating that he didn't understand at all, but it was clearly one of those things that made sense on this side of the Veil. There seemed to be a lot of those. 

* * *

An hour found him on the roof with the bottle, where Nathaniel had already started drinking something else. Something with a much older label, illegible even once Anders was sitting next to it.

"You would not believe the conversation I just had with Justice. Had to have with Justice, thank you very much," Anders griped, gnawing the wax seal off the bottle in his hands and spitting it over the edge of the roof.

Nathaniel held up the bottle he'd been drinking from and eyed it contemplatively. "Llomeryn's finest. 8:78 Blessed. I think it was my grandfather's. He was an asshole, you know? Proud tradition of assholes among the Howes."

"Yourself included," Anders said, with a smile, taking a swig of the relatively recent whiskey he held. Nathaniel knew him well — whiskey from Highever was bottled with a bit of honey. Minimal ageing, lots of kick, and a bit of sweetness on the tongue. He could drink it all day — more literally, now that he was a Warden.

Nathaniel snorted. "Always." He paused for more rum. "Different kind of asshole. I'm not feeding my country to the Orlesians or some old fool with delusions of grandeur and a taste for slaughtering his own."

"Mmm. When you put it like that, I might have to revise my assessments." Anders reached out and rubbed healing into the back of Nathaniel's neck, feeling the muscles slowly relax under his hand.

Groaning and swearing, Nathaniel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. After a moment, he set the bottle aside so he wouldn't drop it when that warm contentment made its way down into his hands.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. Nathaniel sat on the edge of the roof, making the occasional encouraging sound, as Anders massaged his back.

"Why?" Nathaniel asked, finally.

"Why, what, Howe?" Anders chuckled to himself. "Why would I revise my assessments of your assholery, in light of the proven extended assholery of your ancestors?"

"Why me?" Nathaniel clarified, without clarifying anything at all.

"I ask myself that every day. I don't think anyone ever gets an answer."

"No, you flighty ass," Nathaniel groaned, straightening his back and reaching for his bottle. "Maker, I need to drink just to talk to you. Why did you pick me? Why did I end up the target of your grotesque flirtations?"

"You almost make that sound like a complaint! I thought we were past that!" Anders laughed and took a long drink. "But, who else, really? Look around, Howe. Two dwarves, a woman who hates our entire species, a woman who's married to an Antivan Crow — and he sneaks in through the window in the middle of the night and punches people in the junk, and like... Woolsey. And I tried Woolsey. And Justice, I suppose, but I don't think I want to consider that, for too long." He paused, drank again. "Besides, you're a good-looking man."

Nathaniel snorted loudly.

"Oh, come on, I've seen paintings of your father and his father all over the keep. You don't look a damned thing like them, and thank the Maker for that. Those cheeks, that nose — I took one look at that nose, the day we met, and I hoped to the Golden City itself you had the package to back it up." Anders swore as Nathaniel punched him in the arm. "Well, I'm not disappointed! Do I look disappointed?"

"Anders, be real. I don't think you'd look disappointed if you were disappointed. I don't think you'd look disappointed unless you were up to something."

"Well, I'm definitely up to something. I'm up to a roll in the— well, probably not the muddy slates up here. That would get a little rougher than I like it." Anders chuckled and looked around them. "But, drink a little more of that bottle and I'll show you how very not disappointed I am."

"You don't seem to be terribly offended that I need to get drunk to look at you naked." Nathaniel was in one of those moods, apparently, and Anders knew it would end with him throwing the empty bottle — when it was finally empty — as far into the courtyard as he could get it. Which, given Nate's arms, was actually pretty far.

"That's your problem, not mine," Anders replied, with a shrug. "Everyone in Ferelden with a taste for dicks and sass wants a bit of me. You just have to get shitfaced to do anything about it."

"Everyone in Ferelden with a taste for dicks and sass?" Nathaniel took a long swig of rum. "And why aren't you and the Commander...?"

"She likes sass a little better than dicks. Come on, she married an elf." Anders grinned and took another drink. "And speaking of Zevran..." He wiggled his eyebrows, suggestively.

"You did not." Nathaniel looked over in stark horror.

"Of course I did. Solona was busy, and she told me to keep him away from the banns. And then she told us to enjoy ourselves. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure she knew exactly what she was doing. And he definitely did. Andraste's flaming tits aflame, did he ever." Anders stared into the distance, starry-eyed.

"And yet, you keep coming back to me." Nathaniel shook his head and snorted.

"You're rude as the regent, himself, but you're not inconsiderate. You always give me a good time. And you're gorgeous. That doesn't hurt." Anders took a drink and coughed, a lopsided smile settling onto his face. "Okay, how gorgeous are you, from the guy who boned the commander's hot husband. Before there was a thing to avoid speaking of, I spent a lot of nights polishing my knob and thinking about what you'd look like when you came."

"Maker's breath, Anders." Nathaniel covered his eyes with his free hand and spit over the edge of the roof. As his hand slid down to cover his mouth, instead, he shot a sharp look at Anders and just burst out laughing. "You're an idiot."

"No, but I've played one in a pageant." Anders grinned foolishly. "Come on, Howe, I like it. That thing you do somewhere around the sixth one, where you're panting and moaning and you can't close your mouth so you end up drooling all over my chest? It's... kind of a turn-on, really."

"That's great. Six rounds in, I turn you on," Nathaniel shot back, rolling his eyes. "Doesn't really explain the first five."

"You're just going to be an ass all night, aren't you?" Anders took a long drink, trying to catch up.

"As you've pointed out, I _am_ a Howe."

"So, why'd you say yes?" Anders asked, after a moment. "Or, really, why'd you stop saying no long enough to throw me on the floor and have your way with me?"

"Benefits outweighed my disgust," Nathaniel replied, without a moment's pause. He cocked his head and considered the words, after they'd come out of his mouth. "And the benefits just keep getting better. You know, I've thought of moving back into politics — the commander's got her hands full: Teyrn of Gwaren, Arl of Amaranthine, Warden-Commander of Ferelden. I could be the proxy — I was raised to rule Amaranthine, and I'd have to take a wife, of course. And I keep thinking — it's all your fault — that I'd want to marry a mage, but if I did that, then I'd have mage children, and ... I can't be the Arl of Amaranthine with a house full of mages."

"You can't be the Arl of Amaranthine, anyway. You're a Warden."

"Didn't stop Solona."

"Who is also a mage. And married." Anders considered that for a moment. A mage. Married. "But, she's the fucking Hero of Ferelden. She stopped the Blight by stabbing the archdemon in the eye. She can do whatever she wants. You, on the other hand..."

"Am the son of a traitor, who was also the son of a traitor. Yes. I know."

"But, hey, you can get with all the mages you like, and you'll never end up making more of them." Anders grinned and tossed an arm across Nathaniel's shoulders. "Because you're a Warden, and you can't. They've all got spells for that, anyway."

"Not helping." Nathaniel grumbled.

"Of course I am. Think of it. A whole harem of mages, who will just be eternally grateful you're not a templar and you _are_ distractingly sexy." Anders stretched his legs and leaned back. "You really going to tell me the thought doesn't stoke a fire in your loins? Ten of me, but none quite as indescribably perfect as the real thing?"

"Maker. One of you is enough. One of you is more than enough." Nathaniel finished the bottle and, surprisingly, didn't throw it, setting it next to him as he sprawled back onto the roof, staring into the sky.

"That would be my indescribable perfection."

"No, that would be the giant pole you call your knob." Nathaniel's face twisted in disgust and he shuddered. "Unspeakable horror, not indescribable perfection."

"Yeah, try living with it." Anders snorted. "And that is absolutely not what you said on Marketday. In fact, I believe your exact words were—"

"Anders, I will push you off this roof."

"Well, they certainly weren't that." Anders grinned wickedly. "Something a little more like 'I said "fuck me" not "watch paint dry"!', as I recall. And then there was—"

Nathaniel sat up. "Andraste's ass, Anders, I'm warning you..."

Anders turned his head to look at Nathaniel, then, honey-gold eyes gleaming in the starlight, as he smiled. "Howe? I jumped out a sixth-storey window of Kinloch Hold, one time."

"Maker—" Nathaniel's wrath faded into amazement. Horror, really, which was so often the case when Anders started talking. "Are you out of your entire mind?"

"Thirty-foot ceilings, in Kinloch Hold," Anders said, still smiling. "And you're one to talk — you stormed a keep full of Wardens, drunk as a lay brother, with twenty arrows and no backup."

"Yes, but I was trying to die, at the time," Nathaniel sighed.

"Who said I wasn't?"

"Idiot."

"That's a lot from you!" Anders huffed. "But, the point is throwing me off the roof isn't going to help. It's just going to mean you don't get laid. And since you brought me whiskey, I can only assume you want to get laid, so pushing me off the roof is not in your best interest."

Nathaniel glanced at the empty bottle of rum and picked up Anders's whiskey, taking a long swig. "I don't even know what I want. Something. Four more drinks. My life back."

Anders sat up and then heaved himself to his feet. "Come on, you drunken asshole, son of asshole, son of asshole, let's go back inside, and I'll show you some more fun tricks with lightning."

"Only if you rub my feet first," Nathaniel grumbled, stumbling upward, as Anders pulled him back from the edge of the roof.

"Only if you wash your feet first," Anders retorted, heading for the ladder back down to the parapets.

"Consider it done," Nathaniel said, wrapping an arm around Anders's waist and resting his head below Anders's shoulder, as they walked. "You know I love it when you do that. Feels so good."

"I want to make it clear right now how pissed I'm going to be if I have to carry you down this ladder, Howe."

"I'm not that drunk. I'm just drunk enough that you're pretty."

"I'm always pretty. You need glasses."


End file.
